DON'T FAIL TO ADDRESS CUSTOMERS' WANTS AND NEEDS
Your customers and prospects do not care about you and what you want or need. Does that sound harsh? It may, but it's also true!
Your customers don't care if you are starving, if you want to buy a new house, if your child has to go in the hospital, if you want to sell out, or if you want to buy a new Mercedes.
All they care about is, 'What's in it for me?'
They do not care if you need to make the mortgage payment this month or want a new car or have to pay for college tuition. They only care about their wants and needs.
Most agencies never precisely understand the wants, needs, desires, or buying behavior of the people to whom they are trying to sell.
If you understand this simple concept, you will become very successful. If you turn the tables and subordinate 100% of what's in it for you (because your customers don't care) and start thinking in terms of what's in it for them, you will step far ahead of the competition.
Those agencies that understand their customers' needs and attempt to satisfy those needs will end up with all the business.
Figure out what your customers want, what their dreams are, what their fears are, what their hopes are, what performance requirements they have, and what benefits they seek.
Then take care of them.
Understanding Behavior Styles
Once you understand customers' wants and needs, the next step is to learn how to effectively communicate your solution to their needs in a manner that they will be willing to listen to.
Interpersonal skills are absolutely mandatory to effectively address customers' wants and needs. To make a successful sales presentation, the message must be heard and understood by the prospect. The prospect must be receptive to your message, or you will not make the sale. Understanding behavioral traits and styles (yours and your prospects) will allow you to build a winning sales presentation customized to the style of your prospects.
Behavioral traits fall into four general categories:
- D: Dominance-how you respond to problems or challenges.
- I: Influence-how you influence others to your point of view.
- S: Steadiness-how you respond to the pace of the environment.
- C: Compliance-how you respond to rules and procedures set by others.
To blend your own particular selling style into customers' buying style, determine the buying characteristics of those customers.
When you have made that determination, you can readily adjust the sales presentation to that of each customer. As a result, you'll be meeting prospects on their ground, they'll be much more receptive to your presentation, and sales will be easier to make.
Suddenly, you'll see why you haven't been able to sell that 'difficult' prospect, or why others are easy to sell but are also easily 'stolen' by competitors.
Ask Customers What They Want
The way to discover the wants and needs of customers is to ask. Send customer surveys. Ask what they like about your operation. How easy is it to do business with you? Are the CSRs helpful and friendly? Agencies don't do this now because they think they are doing a great job already or are afraid of the answers they'll receive.
Read all the ads other people run and all the marketing that influences you. Keep a file of all the direct-mail letters or ads you ever responded to and dissect them to see what they offered you that satisfied your need. Make a comprehensive list and translate it into ideas that you can use in marketing programs.
Let customers tell which specific needs they want filled the most. Do that through testing, through listening, or asking yourself. By understanding customers and prospects and taking care of their needs, you can achieve the marketing results desired.